We put the focus on cutting-edge galleries at PARISPHOTO 2019 at the Grand Palais. Here are the most significant photographic exhibitions.
BEING STAGED AND FRAMED
"ParisPhoto is an exceptional platform for discovery and exchange, to unveil the best of photography over nearly two centuries."
Christoph Wiesner
Artistic Director of ParisPhoto
Interviews and featured galleries, artists by Zoltan Alexander
Christoph Wiesner of ParisPhoto, Peter Hujar at Jeu de Paume (Paris), Jonny Briggs at Approche (Paris), AKKA at Le Carreau du Temple (Paris), Hassan Hajjaj at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris), Emeric Lhuisset at BMW Residency (Paris), Máté Bartha at TOBE Gallery (Budapest), Elsa Leydier at Galerie Intervalle (Paris) and Maison Ruinart (Reims), Osei Bonsu of Tate Modern (London), Samuel Fordham of UWE at Carte Blanche Student (Bristol), Eric Baudelaire at Galería Juana De Aizpuru (Madrid), Niko Luoma at Taik Persons Gallery (Berlin), Ayana V Jackson at JP Morgan Chase (New York) and at Marian Ibrahim Gallery (Boston), Pixy Liao at Blindspot Gallery (Hong Kong), Adrian Sauer at Klemm's Gallery (Berlin), Anne Bean at England & Co Gallery (London), Helmut Newton, Herb Ritts at Hamiltons Gallery (London), Stevenson Gallery (Cape Town/ Johannesburg), Juergen Teller at Suzanne Tarasieve Gallery (Paris), Georges Rousse, Anna Malagrida, Denis Darzacq, Sabine Pigalle at Galerie RX (Paris), Joel-Peter Witkin at Galerie Baudoin Lebon (Paris), Lorenzo Vitturi at Flowers Gallery (London), Edward Burtynsky at Nicholas Metiver Gallery (Toronto), Tim Walker at Michael Hoppen Gallery (London)
PART II.
Interview with Emeric Lhuisset at BMW Residency (Paris)
and Máté Bartha at TOBE Gallery (Budapest)
PART III.
Interview with Elsa Leydier at Galerie Intervalle (Paris) with the participation of Maison Ruinart
ParisPhoto 2019 / © video by Zoltan Alexander ZOLTAN+MEDIA
An unparalleled presentation of contemporary and vintage photography from grandmasters to emerging young talents, from Mapplethorpe to Man Ray, ParisPhoto 2019 returns to the Grand Palais with its 23rd edition.
The Fair always opens on a Tuesday for a selected crowd of officials and collectors, on Wednesday for the press and VIP and from Thursday to Sunday to the public.
Since 1997, the Fair’s mission is to provide visitors with first-hand insights and access to the art world, promote galleries, publishers and artists all around the world. This year ParisPhoto brought 179 galleries and 33 publishers together, offering collectors and art-enthusiasts the most diverse presentation in photography.
The Fair's programming had a large variety of curated exhibitions and conversation cycles with guest-artists, curators, collectors and art critics. Publishing houses were present as photography would not exist without the support of books - essential in the visibility and the knowledge that they bring to the medium.
Each year, ParisPhoto is divided into sectors:
the Main section with exhibitors, Curiosa with its second edition curated by Osei Bonsu, Carte Blanche Student partnered with Picto Foundation and SNCF Gares & Connexions, Aperture with Art Book Dealers & Publishers, followed by Prismes and the MK2 Film section in the Salon d'Honneur on the first floor with the additional Art Collection of the Fair's official partner J.P. Morgan Chase next to the VIP Lounge of Maison Ruinart presenting large-scale prints of Vik Muniz.
In addition to the collectors' programme “In Paris during ParisPhoto” reunited a dense network of cultural institutions throughout Paris comprising some of the most compelling photographic exhibitions.
We highlighted a few.
highlights / JEU DE PAUME / PETER HUJAR
The life and photographic images of Peter Hujar (1934-1987) are inseparable from the 80’s New York. Independent by nature, willingly combative, cultivated and well introduced into the artistic world, Hujar evolved in an avant-garde scene made of dancers, musicians, visual artists and transvestites. His accomplishment as a photographer was contemporary with the evolution and visibility of the gay lifestyle between 1969 and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.
After high school in 1953, Hujar worked as an assistant to various photographers in advertising. Five years of collaborating with mainstream magazines were enough to convince him that a career as a fashion photographer was not for him. In 1973, he dived into a more elaborate, artistic life allowing himself greater freedom in his photographic work. He rented a loft-studio above an East Village theatre and turned his focus on those who refused to have easy success in life.
He said they were "simple and direct images of difficult and complicated subjects". He immortalised instants and cultural practices of his time, had a brief affair with young artist David Wojnarowicz, with whom he went through all the dilapidated neighbourhoods and underground places of New York. The city Hujar photographed at this time was a small vibrant world with intense creative energy and freedom, which has since disappeared. Peter Hujar died in November 1987 from AIDS-related pneumonia.
His current exhibition at Jeu de Paume, "Peter Hujar: Speed of Life" presents a selection of over 140 photographs, resolutely black & white prints, nudes and landscapes of New York City. The exhibition follows Hujar's journey from his early works in the mid-1950s to the 1980s when he was one of the major figures of the East Village art scene.
highlights / APPROCHE / JONNY BRIGGS
The satellite art fair APPROCHE organised by Emilia Genuardi and Elsa Janssen, at Galerie Le Molière, rue Richelieu, presented 15 international artists. Amongst the exhibitors the Italian Nconemporary exhibited a photographic series by UK artist Jonny Briggs.
Briggs had already many exhibitions behind him including Saatchi Gallery (London), Zabludowicz Collection (London), Fondazione Fotografia Modena (Modena) and Unseen (Amsterdam).
Briggs said: “In search of lost parts of my childhood I try to think outside the reality I was socialised into. I explore the constructed reality of the family and question the boundaries between us, between child/adult, self/other, nature/culture, real/fake in an attempt to revive my unconditioned self, beyond the family bubble.
Although easily assumed to be photoshopped or faked, upon closer inspection the images are made to be more real than first expected. Involving staged installations, I look back to my younger self and attempt to re-capture childhood nature through my assuming adult eyes.”
highlights / LE CARREAU DU TEMPLE / AKAA
AKAA, “Also Known As Africa” with its 4th edition presented 50 exhibitors at the Carreau du Temple, an ever more specialised selection of art galleries and works of over 150 artists connected to Africa, including some new galleries from Germany, Angola and Mali. A unique fair of contemporary art and design dedicated to Africa and its diasporas, and its artistic influence throughout the world Africa. AKAA also aims to inform, educate and guide, and therefore, "AKAA Underground" was created in 2017.
AKAA has become one of the must-attend events for collectors, professionals and art-lovers. It is also distinguished by its conviviality and its desire for exchange, offering a warm, fluid, open space to meetings; at the same time it is commercial, cultural and intellectual, thanks to “AKAA Meetings”, the full-fledged platform within the Fair where artists, curators and professionals are invited to speak and debate publicly. With a rich programme of conferences, concerts, screenings, performances and readings, “AKAA Meetings” reflects on the creative dynamism of radiating Africa.
highlights / LA MAISON EUROPÉENNE DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE / HASSAN HAJJAJ
First French retrospective, reflecting a 30-year career of Anglo-Moroccan artist Hassan Hajjaj at the MEP / Maison Européenne de la Photographie. He was offered a carte blanche to invest all areas of the European House of Photography including the Ateliers Pedagogiques to the in-house shop and café, which he transformed into a Moroccan House of Photography.
The vast journey traces several years of his career, featuring the most important photographic series as well as videos, installations, furniture, rugs and decorations, testifying to a colourful universe that makes him one of the most recognised pioneers of pop art in Morocco.
Hassan Hajjaj is the pioneer of Moroccan pop art.
Hajjaj’s deliberately kitsch world feeds on clichés. He often combines ethnic influences, logos and everyday objects with the basis of very simple materials; he uses clichés giving them a contemporary form: road signs and shop signs turned into tables, tin cans transformed into chandeliers. His portraits of women wearing djellabas, scarves, veils and other traditional items contrast with surprising, modern elements, such as vividly coloured fabrics, leopard prints, sunglasses or shoes imitating high-end luxury brands. Hajjaj also addresses political issues of wearing the veil and identity. Proud and defiant, his models pose on their motorbikes which they ride around Marrakesh.
Born in 1961 in Larache, Morocco, and settled in London since 1973, Hajjaj lives and works between the two countries and never stops creating bridges between them. His photographic series started in 1980, revealing an artistic universe shared between the two cultures. His large-scale, colourful images and three-dimensional picture frames with consumer products are nourished by London's cultural and musical scenes as well as by the North
African heritage.
The exhibition ends with an extensive selection of black & white prints, portraits, group shots and more documentary-like street scenes, in contrast to his colour photographs.
"I love Morocco's lights and colours. I've learned not to be scared of mixing everything together. I also wanted to show the world what I saw of the country and its people – the energy, the attitude, the inventiveness and glamour of street fashion, the fantastic graphics on everyday objects and products, and people's happy outlook and strength of character".
Hajjaj’s work was also presented during ParisPhoto at Yossi Milo Gallery, New York.
Satellite exhibitions and events were proposed in the"Collectors Circle” programme including:
“Trees” at Fondation Cartier
“Future, Ancien, Fugitive” at Palais de Tokyo
“Toulouse-Lautrec” at the Grand Palais
Artists' studio-visits including Paolo Roversi’s studio
and nights filled with music and special events at the fashionable Les Bains and Silencio
Now, let’s return to the Grand Palais, to ParisPhoto.
ParisPhoto is much more than just a photographic art fair. It is an emotional journey.
During previous years, working with other publications, I was limited to a “one-gallery-one-photo” concept with just a few lines of captions as "apparently" online readers today are not willing to read more. Well, I beg to differ. I believe there are still people who like to read more and explore. Discovering is still a virtue.
Therefore, I decided to cover ParisPhoto in four chapters (Parts I.-IV.), giving a much bolder and more personal spectrum through interviews and soundscapes we made during the Fair, focusing on galleries and artists who seek for what we consider outstanding, exceptional and preferably worth collecting.
During the New York Times opening, I was talking to Christoph Wiesner, the Artistic Director of ParisPhoto.
Z+ "How would you describe ParisPhoto in a few words?"
CW "ParisPhoto is an exceptional platform for discovery and exchange, to unveil the best of photography over nearly two centuries. The market is young, growing and there's a huge diversity. Photography is a good entry into collecting."
Z+ "How were the participants selected this year?"
CW "Following our tradition, each year the exhibitors are selected by an international committee of renowned gallerists and publishers. This year Howard Greenberg, Yossi Milo, Renos Xippas, Tim Jefferies, Frish Brandt, Timothy Persons, Françoise Paviot searched for exceptional qualities and originality. We also have many new galleries this year."
Z+ "New York after Paris?"
CW "Yes, we are launching ParisPhoto in New York for the first time between 2 - 5 April 2020, forming a transatlantic hub between the two capitals, just five years after we folded the Fair in Los Angeles. LA was a complicated issue, but New York has the wealth of photography collectors, a huge existing market
with auctions, and great energy
around it."
ParisPhoto is more than just an art fair. It is also political.
Without particularly seeking any political issues or war-related images at ParisPhoto, the
subject was very present. A subject not to be ignored.
BMW RESIDENCY / EMERIC LHUISSET / France
One of the most poignant photographic series "L'Autre Rive" was presented by BMW's laureate, French-born photographer Emeric Lhuisset. Since 2003, BMW created their Residency programme to support young artists, and to award total creative freedom to an emerging photographer.
The winner of 2019 was Emeric Lhuisset whose work is undoubtably powerful, breathtaking, and discovering the background stories of his photographic images could make anyone speechless. I walked through the exhibition with the artist, who invites the visitor to reimagine the story of a land that refuses to be simplified.
Full interview in ParisPhoto Part II.
TOBE GALLERY / MATE BARTHA / Hungary
Not far from BMW Residency's booth, nor from Lhuisset's subject, I discovered another gallery carrying a similar message but in a very different way. TOBE Gallery from Budapest presented two photographers, Máté Bartha and Marian Reismann, however, their booth looked more like a solo-show with a solo message.
"Kontakt" by Maté Bartha was definitely a strong choice. Soldier-boys and soldier-girls in a Hungarian summer camp. They were raw, beautiful portraits, and Bartha knows how to treat war-games. I asked him about the subject... just how could a 14-15 year-old girl or boy sign up voluntarily for a military camp instead of a summer holiday?
Full interview in ParisPhoto Part II.
GALERÍA JUANA DE AIZPURU / ERIC BAUDELAIRE / Spain
Galería Juana de Aizpuru opened in Seville in 1970 focusing on Spanish artists abroad and bringing the international art scene to Spain through artists such as Frank Stella, Diane Arbus, Richard Hamilton, Andy Warhol, Eduardo Chillida, Antoni Tapies, Millares, Rauschenberg. When democracy arrived to Spain in 1975, the gallery began participating at art fairs including Köln, ArtBasel, ArtChicago, ArtL.A., followed by BaselMiami, FriezeLondon, ParisPhoto and FriezeNewYork.
In 2006 Galería Juana de Aizpuru opened a gallery in Madrid and closed the one in Seville. Currently they represent Wolfgang Tillmans, Yasumasa Morimura, Andres Serrano, Alberto García-Alix, Eric Baudelaire.
Eric Baudelaire was born in Salt Lake City, grew up in France, and returned to the States in 1991. He started his career as a photographer before making films. At ParisPhoto Galería Juana de Aizpuru exhibited his large-scale photographic diptych “The Dreadful Details” which was initially commissioned by the French Ministry of Culture. “The Dreadful Details” shot in 2006, gathers art-historical questions into a picture that deals with war and its representation.
“I think I was expected to go to Iraq or another conflict zone to do landscapes with a large-format camera. Instead, I went to Los Angeles to a small ranch that had been converted into a film set.” Eric Baudelaire.
In the film studios, first there was a Mexican set that had been converted into an Afghan set after 9/11. By 2006, it was an Iraqi set built entirely by a 25-year-old carpenter who had never left the States, and who had based his constructions on pictures from Time magazine.
When Baudelaire started to work on “The Dreadful Details,” he hired people who worked on a Hollywood TV series set in Iraq, actors and extras who frequently played Arabs, although most of them weren’t Arab, former Marines who worked as TV consultants and costume designers to create a staged war image in the tradition of history paintings by artists like Géricault, Delacroix, and Manet. The result was a haunting image, made into diptych, with a cinematic process, which initially made Baudelaire to make films.
CARTE BLANCHE STUDENTS 2019 / SAMUEL FORDMAN / UK
Picto Foundation and SNCF Gares & Connexions partnered to launch Carte Blanche Student 2019, a platform for the discovery and exposure of outstanding young graduate photographers throughout Europe. For the third executive year, Carte Blanche Student presented four finalists in photography and visual arts from various European master and bachelor university programmes, and parallel to ParisPhoto at the Gare du Nord railway station they displayed their work on giant digital billboards.
At ParisPhoto the finalists met directly with the visitors, sat in a row behind a communal table and presented their portfolios during their one-on-one meetings. This year’s finalists were: Samuel Fordham (Bristol, UK), Chris Hoare (Bristol, UK), Fernando Marante (Lisbon, Portugal) and Giulia Parlato (London, UK).
I asked the young, determined Samuel Fordman from UWE Bristol to talk about his photographic project:
“My series is part autobiographical, part documentary, working with other families. The series looks into parents who were deported from the United Kingdom, taken away from their children and the rest of the family. Personally, I am very involved with the subject; my wife is from Russia, and the rules are strict; if I do not earn enough money, she will get deported. It is a complex and devastating issue. Currently it is estimated there are around 20,000 families in the UK where one parent is deported. There are some children who have never met the other parent, only through Skype or Facetime."
"My project is part therapeutic, part activist. I am aiming to show my series next year at the parliament at Westminster, trying to change the immigration law, and also trying to build a community around me who are is the same situation. With Brexit, when the UK leaves the EU, these rules will apply to everyone who falls in love outside the UK, and I don’t even want to suggest how many people will be affected."
"All the images are titled though conversations. There are titles like “I just want to know my daughter better” or “I thought I would sit here at look out over the Fjord for the last time”. On the other hand, my negative images are untitled. The photographs in negatives are from families I have worked with. They are like a symbol of replicability, and all the other photographs in colour are from my own experience. On one of my photos I blocked the image with circles. I partially overlaid the photo with a visa application form, not juxtaposition layers but digitally imputed various data. It has a happy postcard-feel about it; the circles look decorative but somehow make me think of bullet holes."
"The digital media is important to me, simply because when you are communicating with someone over Facetime, it becomes a digital relationship. It was important to understand how a family member could turn into digital, how the image can be manipulated and eventually destroyed. It is more like projecting the idea of “what would happen if my wife is deported, how would that change and destroy our relationship?"
"Here is another picture, a black & white image with three mysterious foggy spotlights. In fact, they are computer screens when I was Facetiming with my wife. I used long exposure, almost 30 minutes … so the camera has seen everything, recorded everything, but we, as viewers, cannot see anything, the images on the screens remain invisible, ultimately showing that if you have a relationship with someone who has been deported, who is not there with you anymore, the images are nothing but illusions.”
BLINDSPOT GALLERY / PIXY LIAO / Hong Kong
The New-York based Chinese artist Pixy Liao works with photography, installation and performance, often combining the three, as in her series "Experimental Relationship" (2007-ongoing), which she created with her Japanese boyfriend and muse, Moro.
Pixy Liao, in a staged situation, challenges gender roles and unpacks the tensions between the public and private life of couples in a deadpan manner. Her presentation at ParisPhoto comes from her solo show at Les Rencontre d'Arles from last summer.
MICHAEL HOPPEN GALLERY / TIM WALKER / UK
The gallery Michael Hoppen presented a powerful solo-exhibition “Wonderful People” by Tim Walker celebrating his portraiture and iconic images of fashion photography alongside his current solo exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Walker's images have an outstanding presence as large-scale pictures framed on the wall.
Walker's photographs are nostalgic for an era of innocence and exuberance; youthful imagination and a uniquely British aesthetic. His world is reminiscent of a childhood spent dressing up in the closet or dragging family ancient couture down to the bottom of the garden. These memories are retold with a sublimely reminiscent matured eye for drama and intrigue. Walker painstakingly stages each picture, which reinforces the home-spun magic and texture shown in each image.
"Viewers will be drawn in to meticulously crafted scenes, otherworldly landscapes which reveal Tim's regard for British painters such as Eric Ravilious and Paul Nash. His seductive images demand to be read as more than fashion." Greville Worthington, a former Turner Prize judge.
Born in England in 1970, Tim Walker's interest in photographs began at the Condé Nast library in London where he worked on the Cecil Beaton archives before taking up a place at Exeter College of Art to study photography. After graduating, he became assistant to Richard Avedon in New York before returning to England where he initially concentrated on portrait and documentary work for UK newspapers.
At the age of 25 he shot his first fashion story for British Vogue, and has photographed for the British, Italian and American editions ever since. He has also contributed to Harper’s Bazaar, W, i-D and Vanity Fair magazines, and advertising campaigns for brands such as Yohji Yamamoto, Guerlain and Dior Parfums. His first major exhibition was held at the Design Museum in London in 2008. In November 2008 Walker received the Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator from The British Fashion Council, in May 2009, the Infinity Award from The International Center of Photography, New York and in 2012 he opened a major mid-career retrospective at Somerset House in London. This incredible exhibition also marked the launch of his second book "Story Teller", published by Thames and Hudson.
Tim Walker’s solo exhibition is currently at the V&A in London.
MAISON RUINART / ELSA LEYDIER / France
CURIOSA / GALERIE INTERVALLE / ELSA LEYDIER / France
French photographer Elsa Leydier’s work was presented at two different areas during ParisPhoto - at Curiosa by Galerie Intervalle and at the North-East platform of the Grand Palais by Maison Ruinart.
The second edition of Curiosa was curated by the British-Ghanaian curator Osei Bonsu. One of the most outstanding photographers was Elsa Leydier who currently lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
She won the Prix Ruinart ParisPhoto 2019 and created an installation of her photographic series at the North-East corridor of the Grand Palais. Leydier is also the winner of the Dior Prize for Photography for Young Talents 2019. In addition, her images were exhibited at Les Rencontres d'Arles during the summer. I sat down with Elsa to talk about her photographic work.
Full interview in ParisPhoto Part III.
KLEMM'S GALLERY / ADRIAN SAUER / Germany
German artist Adrian Sauer is not typically driven by themes, although his installation “Raum für Alle - Room for Everyone,” is an exception, he digitally reconstructed Bauhaus living spaces based on historical photographs. Together with the architect Wilfried Kühn, Sauer researched the information missing from the images, such as colours and spatial details to reconstruct these lost rooms. Yet the artifice of the digital images negates the documentary value of these works and places them firmly in the realm of conceptual imagery instead.
His gallerist Sebastian Klemm said: “The curatorial feedback on this presentation might have been the best we had in the five years since we’re doing the Fair.”
NICHOLAS METIVIER GALLERY / EDWARD BURTYNSKY / Canada
The Nicholas Metivier Gallery was founded in 2004, and it is one of the largest contemporary galleries in Canada. The gallery puts the focus on to represent and promote Canadian and international artists from different generations who demonstrate exceptional quality and originality in all media. At ParisPhoto Nicholas Metivier Gallery presented Edward Burtynsky’s large-scale photographic images.
Burtynsky is regarded as one of the world’s most accomplished contemporary photographers; his work is present in the collections of over sixty major museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Reina Sofia Museum (Madrid), the Tate Modern (London).
The predominant theme of his work is nature transformed through industry. Burtynsky has been investigating human-altered landscapes in his artistic practice for over 35 years and has documented some of the most poignant examples of this around the world. Often using an aerial vantage point, his large-scale photographs are rich in detail, verging on the appearance of painterly abstractions, capturing the sweeping views of nature altered by industry, from stone and minerals to oil, transportation and silicon. Burtynsky works on each project for several years before he releases them. His major works include “Oil” (2009), “Water” (2013), “Anthropocene” (2018).
“Most people would walk by a dump pile and assume that there’s no picture there, but there’s always a picture, you just have to go in there and find it.” Edward Burtynsky.
JP MORGAN CHASE / AYANA V JACKSON / South Africa
MARIANNE IBRAHIM / AYANA V JACKSON / USA
Marking their 9th year as official partner of ParisPhoto, JP Morgan Chase private banking returned with a broad range of photographic portraits from the bank's Art Collection. "Collective Identity" featured iconic works, as well as recent acquisitions by artists from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the Americas and Europe including Ayana V Jackson, Shirin Neshat, Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, Jonas Mekas and Cindy Sherman.
Ayana V Jackson was also represented by Mariane Ibrahim Gallery Chicago.
Born in the US, based between Johannesburg, New York and Paris, Jackson’s work looks at the complexities of photographic representation and the role of the camera in constructing identity. Using performance and studio-based portraiture, her practice is a map of the ethical considerations and relationships involved between the photographer, subject and viewer.
With a particular interest in the 19th and early 20th century representation of black bodies, Jackson steps into the world of her reference materials as a way to question the role the history of photography and fine art played in the construction of race and gender stereotype.
During ParisPhoto in the frame of "Talks & Conversations" curator Jason Molchanow of JPMorgan Chase Art Program, New York spoke with artist Ayana V. JACKSON.
Curator Jason Molchanow talks to artist Ayana V. Jackson
ENGLAND & CO GALLERY / ANNE BEAN / UK
The gallery England & Co was founded in 1987 and held its initial exhibition in April 1988 in Notting Hill. England & Co established an independent and individual identity that reflects its eclectic, historically aware, research-based curatorial approach. The gallery represents a number of contemporary artists, advises and acts for the estates of artists and collectors; and also holds a regularly changing stock of 20th and 21st century artworks.
As art historian, gallery director/curator Jane England is committed to working with artists’ archives and researching and curating retrospective exhibitions. At ParisPhoto she presented a powerful exhibition of Anne Bean’s photographic work.
Anne Bean is a legendary London-based artist who is an active and influential figure in live art and performance in the UK. Born in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) in the 1950s, she moved to England in 1969 after an initial art education at the University of Cape Town. Her wide-ranging practice encompasses slide projections, drawing, photography, video and sound, with materials such as fire and pyrotechnics to weather balloons and wind to steam and honey. England & Co have exhibited photographs relating to her performance works from the 1970s at PhotoLondon, Somerset House, since 2016, at ParisPhoto in 2019, and are holding a solo exhibition of her work in London this year.
“The art of Anne Bean makes strange our sense of time, memory, language, the body, and identity, particularly through solo and collaborative performances along a vital continuum between art and life.” Jane England
Bean has often collaborated with photographers, re-performing or making a new performance specifically for the camera, a practice she has occasionally utilised since the 1970s. These photographic images result from her early performances and emerge from her fearless dialogues with the elements, fire and water and her risk-taking, often perilous performances that tested her endurance and fearlessness - as evidenced in these memorable images.
In “Heat” (1977) she re-visited a performance she had first made in 1974. In the performance for the camera of “Heat”, Bean instructed her collaborator who was to record the event. She then applied a flammable liquid to the front of a sheet of glass that she placed just in front of her face, before igniting it while she remained behind in close proximity to the glass, reacting to the heat as the flames intensified and the glass seemed to be on the verge of shattering. Later Bean re-engaged with the images, attacking the printed photographs with flame or corrosives or cutting up, collaging and inscribing them.
GALERIE BAUDOIN LEBON & ETHERTON GALLERY / JOEL-PETER WITKIN / France
At ParisPhoto the Galerie Baudoin Lebon collaborated with Etherton Gallery and presented a solo-show “Icons/Icônes”, in honor of the 80th birthday of photographer Joel-Peter Witkin.
Looking back over these years, the Galerie Baudoin Lebon, opened in 1976, revealed some major unchanging features, one of which is undoubtedly the diversity but also the long-term relationship with their artists.
Etherton Gallery, established in 1981, is best known for its expertise in post-World War II American photography. In over 300 exhibitions featuring well over 100 artists, the gallery has showcased the icons of the history of photography as well as the contemporary artists changing its course. The gallery is a long-standing member of AIPAD / The Association of International Photography Art Dealers, and Terry Etherton serves on the Board of Directors.
Using an exquisite mix of models, elaborate backdrops, props, wit and wisdom, photographer Joel-Peter Witkin mines art history, sexuality, mythology, and the contemporary climate before he claws, collages, and manually manipulates his way to a final print that brings us to what he calls the two great mysteries of the world: God and Beauty.
Drawn from the inventories of both Etherton Gallery and Galerie Baudoin Lebon, and the artist’s personal archive, the presentation was one of the most comprehensive recent exhibitions of Witkin's work, featuring photographs from a prolific 38-year span, beginning in 1980. Work on display included long sold-out, rare images and the last available image in the edition.
GALERIE RX / SABINE PIGALLE / DENIS DARZACQ / GEORGES ROUSSE / France
At ParisPhoto Galerie RX presented French contemporary artists Sabine Pigalle, Anna Malagrida, Denis Darzacq and George Rousse.
The gallery opened in Paris in 2002, and encourages contemporary art through its programmes, international artists, residencies and monumental installations. In addition, the gallery proposes and develops external projects with public and private institutions, as well as partnerships with international galleries.
The sublime work of Sabine Pigalle favours the photographic medium, and she is part of the movement of a new generation navigating the troubled borders of reality and fiction. The main axe of her work questions the myths, the heritage, the temporal notion, the collective memory, and focuses on portraits as representation of staggered archetypes. In line with the movement of Post-photography, she combines paintings and photographs, figuration and abstraction, ancient and contemporary art.
The “Cardinal Last Supper”, compiled from paintings representing the ecclesiastical world, is a response to the words of the most conservative American Cardinal Raymond Burke, known for his vehement opposition to the tolerance of the church towards divorced people and homosexual couples. He believes that women's rights lead men to grow up without identity, causing havoc later in life. As a result, men are "poorly trained" and fall into "pornography, sexual promiscuity, alcohol, drugs and a range of addictions".
In Pigalle’s picture in echo with the Cardinal’s words, a woman is displayed in the position of a sacrificed victim, and put on an index. Around her, as judges, Cardinals form a coalition and display expressions that oscillate between contempt, desire and frustration.
George Rousse known for large-scale photographs depicting painted alterations within existing spaces. Rousse studied a combination of medicine, architectural photography, and printing techniques. His hallmark works are influenced by both Land Art and the legendary Modernist Kazimir Malevich’s paintings of simple shapes atop white backgrounds. When photographed, these complex interventions appear as perspectival, optical illusions and digital effects rather than installations within the scene itself. Rousse often uses soon-to-be demolished or renovated buildings in his artworks, since his on-site paintings are not meant to last but rather exist solely as photographs.
Return in 2020
INDEX
COVER
Interior of the Grand Palais with the photographic image of Elsa Leydier
/ Photo © Courtesy of ZOLTAN+MEDIA
PARISPHOTO 2019
Grand Palais 1 Avenue du Général Eisenhower, 75008 Paris, France
/ 5 November 2019 / invitation only
/ 6 November 2019 / invitation only / Press + VIP
/ 7-10 November 2019 / Tickets: Full Rate Entry Week 30€ / Week-End 32€ / After Work 25€
ARCHIVES
PARISPHOTO 2018
/ have a look what happened a year ago at ParisPhoto 2018
WHAT'S NEXT
PARISPHOTO PART II.
/ interview with Emeric Lhuisset at the BMW Residency Paris
“Theatre of War” by Emeric Lhuisset
/ Photo © Courtesy of Emeric Lhuisset
PARISPHOTO PART II.
/ interview with Máté Bartha at TOBE Gallery Budapest
/ Photo © Courtesy of Tomas Opitz and TOBE Gallery
PARISPHOTO PART III.
/ interview with Elsa Leydier at Maison Ruinart Paris
/ Photo © Courtesy of ZOLTAN+MEDIA